


birthday!  only not so much?

by aparticularbandit



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:32:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: luisa tries to get raf to do stuff after elena abandons him.





	birthday!  only not so much?

three days after her stepmother disappeared, luisa stands waiting for her grandmother dressed in her best sunday dress – a soft, rosy pink covered with bright golden sunflowers.  perhaps it isn’t her _best_ dress, but it is her _especial_ favorite.  in her hands, she carries the little pink clasp purse with the rose clasp which grandmami had given her for her tenth birthday.  she hopes that she’ll get another one for her eleventh birthday in a few weeks.  it’s coming up!  and there is a little white purse she wants and little white gloves to go with it – she is going to be in fifth grade!  and she won’t get mud or juice on them!  and grandmami isn’t going to get her makeup until she turns thirteen.  (but she stole some of her stepmother’s lipstick and keeps it hidden in her pink purse.  she isn’t wearing any right now.  grandmami would be so upset if she wore it to church.)

grandmami should be here any minute.

_where is rafael?_

luisa shifts in her muddy white mary janes, knocking her heels together, before putting her purse down on the table and running to her little brother’s room, shoes clunking on the hardwood and tile floor.  “raf!” she yells as she runs down the hall.  “it’s almost time for church!  where _are_ you?”  she skids to a stop in front of his room and pushes open the door without knocking.

her brother lays curled up under his blankets, a newly four-year-old mess of long hair and big eyes and racecars everywhere because he’s far too young to watch star wars yet.  (luisa’s seen it.  she loves princess leia!  she wants to be her for halloween!  daddy won’t let her wear the pretty outfit, though.)

“not going,” raf mutters from beneath his comforter.

“yes, you are!”  luisa stomps over to his bed and digs under the cocoon of blankets until she finds his arm.  she grabs his wrist and begins pulling on it.  “you’re a big boy now!  you gotta keep coming with us!”

“ _no!_ ” raf screams, pulling back on his arm.  “let go!  you hurting me!”

luisa trips backward and loses her grip as raf tears his arm away from her.  she pouts, crosses her arms the way grandmami always does when she’s displeased, and stamps one foot impatiently on the floor.  her brother just buries himself deeper beneath his blankets.  “you’ve _gotta_ go!  you have ta tell everyone you’re four now!”  she creeps forward and pulls back the blankets, sticking her face beneath them.  “you’ll get _presents_.”

“presents?” raf’s tiny voice asks with wonder.  his dark eyes are big as plates as he crawls closer.

“yes!” luisa says with a big nod because he’s too far away to reach forward and drag out yet.  “and cake!”

this is a bit of an exaggeration.  there will probably not be cake at church, but grandmami _always_ took them out for lunch afterwards or took them back to her house for her food (which was much better than going out in luisa’s opinion because grandmami’s food was better made than any of the stuff at the other food places).  wherever they go, though, luisa is _certain_ there will be cake.  and maybe ice cream!  _if she can get raf to go with her!_

raf doesn’t move for a second, thinking over it, and for that second luisa thinks she can get just close enough to pull him out.  then he buries himself deeper into his blankets again.  “is mama going with us?”

“no.  i don’t know where she is.”  luisa crawls under the blankets, searching for her brother.  “but maybe she’ll meet us there!”  finally she’s close enough to him to grab both of his wrists with both of her hands, and she _pulls_ on him again.  “gotcha!”

“ **NO!** ”  rafael digs himself into the bed as much as he can, but luisa is older, bigger, and stronger than he is.  she rips him out from under his blankets and off of his bed, but she’s not strong enough to keep him up and he falls – splat! – on the hard floor.  he screams and pushes at her!  and when she lets go, he crawls under his bed!

luisa doesn’t crawl under his dirty old bed because she’s in her nice rosy pink dress with her favorite golden sunflowers and she was a good girl and dressed up and—

“get out!” she _screams_ , and she can see her brother under his bed covering his ears with his hands so she screams louder.

“stop!”  raf’s face turns white with the force of his yelling.  “stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop!”  and when she just grins and screams even louder, he begins to cry.  “i want my mommy!”

this one, finally, gets luisa to stop her screaming.  she bites her lower lip then gets down on her hands and knees and crawls under the bed just enough to pull her brother to her and wrap her arms around him.  there isn’t room for rocking under the bed, but she tries anyway, ruffling up her hair along the bottom of his bedframe.  “she’s not here but you got me.”

“i want _her_!”  raf’s tiny hands ball up into little fists and he holds them against her chest but he doesn’t push her away.  “i want my _mommy_.”

_me, too._

luisa’s teeth dig into her lower lip and her eyes well up with tears.  “you’ve got your sister.  until i go to church.”

“no!  don’t lemme alone!”  raf butts his head up under luisa’s chin and she hits her head on the bottom of the bed and winces as he tries to look at her with his big round eyes.  but luisa’s better at the puppy dog expression.  over the years she’ll eventually perfect it.  that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work on her.  “i don’t wanna be alone.”

“so put on your nice clothes and come with us!  and then there’s cake and presents and ice cream!”

“and mom?”

luisa shakes her head.  “no mom.  but me!  sister and grandmami and other friends!”

“what if,” and here raf sniffles once and rubs his nose with the back of one hand, “what if mom comes back and we’re gone?”

“she’ll know where to find us.  she always went to church with us before, right?”

raf nods.

“so she’ll know that’s where we’re at.”

there is silence for a few minutes – luisa holding her brother and petting his long hair as he cuddles up a little closer to her.  by now, her grandmami has been forgotten, as has her cute little rosy dress with the little sunflowers.  she’s more concerned with her baby brother, who at least isn’t sniffling anymore.

“lu?” he asks, using the shorter former of her name because he’d had a hard time saying her full name when he was younger and _lu_ was like _loo_ which was sometimes what their dad called the bathroom.  while luisa _hated_ that sometimes her baby brother would use her name that way, he’d mostly stopped.

mostly.

“hm?”

“does she not want me anymore?”  raf’s voice is tiny and thin, and he looks up at her with big, round brown eyes.

luisa sits back a little bit so she can look at him properly, like her mom used to do when _she_ asked a hard question.  she doesn’t remember much of her mom anymore, but she _does_ remember that.  and this – she kisses her little brother’s forehead and holds him close to her, rocking gently.

“i don’t know,”  luisa says finally with a shrug.  at least there is an answer to why _her_ mom is gone.  _she_ is dead.  luisa can at least believe her mama hadn’t wanted to leave.  she’d just been sick.  really really sick.  but _elena_ isn’t sick.  she’s just… _gone_.  disappeared.  like she’d never existed, except she _has_ to have existed because _look_ , here’s raf, right here still with her.

“i don’t know where she went and i don’t know if she wants you anymore.”  luisa keeps going as raf starts to sniffle again.  “but _i_ want you.  so you should stick with the people who wants you.  ok?”

raf nods – slowly, at first, just once or twice, and then eventually a lot faster.

“so you can get out and get dressed for church?  and come with me and grandmami?  and have cake and presents?”

that gets raf to nod even faster, and he crawls out of her lap and quickly goes over to his chest of drawers.  as luisa gets out from under his bed, he moves and shoves her out of his room.  “i changing!  you can’t be in here!”

“but what if you need help?”

“ _no!_ ”

luisa giggles as raf shoves her out of his room and shuts his bedroom door with a loud slam.  she rubs the back of her hand against her nose and runs to the front of the house, where her grandmami is waiting.

“luisa!” her grandmami exclaims as soon as she sees her.  “how did you get your dress so dirty?”

it’s only then that luisa remembers her dress.  her eyes grow wide really fast and she looks down to see the dirt and dust covering her favorite dress!  there’s even sticky crumbs stuck to it and little wet spots where raf had rubbed his snotty nose against it!  her hands clench into little fists, and she pouts when she looks up at her grandmami.  “raf was hiding under his bed and i tried to make him feel better and he doesn’t clean under there and now i’m all dirty.”  she pushes a hand against her cheek and brings it away with _more_ dust!

“oh, dear,” her grandmami says.  she steps forward and holds luisa’s arm up.  “come with me.  we’re going to have to get you changed and cleaned up.”

“but i’m clean!” luisa exclaims, but as soon as she passes one of the mirrors in the bathroom, she can see the dirt covering her face and how tangled and messed up her hair has gotten from getting stuck in the springs under raf’s bed.  her teeth grit together and she scowls as she looks up at her grandmami.  “i don’t have to take a bath, do i?  i can just be a little cleaned up and change and we can still go to church?  it’s raf’s birthday and he—”

“ _hush_ , darling.”

her grandmami wipes a rag across her face, picking up the dirt and grime.  the rag is rough and uncomfortable, and luisa squirms as her grandmami continues to wash everything off.  then her grandmami kneels in front of her, holding the lavender rag tight between her hands.  “do you have another dress clean?”

luisa thinks on it for a moment then nods.  “yes!  yes, i do!”  then she frowns.  “but it’s not my especial favorite like this one is.”

“well, you can’t go in this one, dear.  not now.”

“i know,” luisa says with a frown.  she pouts and looks down until her grandmami lifts her chin with one finger.  “but i can next week, can’t i?”

her grandmami nods, and luisa breaks into a bright grin.  all of a sudden, she scampers back to her own bedroom to change into her other dress.  it’s a white one with little blue flowers all over it, and she doesn’t like it as much because she can’t play in it because she could get it all stained – there are little dark patches near her knees where she’d gotten into a spot of mud the last time she’d worn it – and with cake and ice cream for raf’s birthday, she’s afraid it’ll get dirty and stained again.  but!

when luisa returns to her grandmami, it’s carrying a little straw hat.  “i can wear this with it, right?” she grins.  “that makes it all better.”

“ _lu!_ ”

raf’s voice from down the hall.  “help!  i need help!  i can’t get the buttons!”

luisa’s grandmami taps the tip of luisa’s nose with one finger, and luisa scrunches up her nose.  “what’s that for?”

“you brush out your hair,” her grandmami says, “and put your hat on and i’ll take care of your brother and then we can go, ok?”

“ok!”

it doesn’t take long to brush out her hair.  it’ll be long in the future, but it’s only shoulder-length now.  elena’d had her cut it for the summer right before she left, just before raf’s birthday, so it’s almost the same length raf’s is but a little longer.  it _hurts_ to brush out the tangles, but once it’s done, she tops her head with her little straw hat with the bright yellow ribbon and runs down to meet raf and her grandmami.

raf almost tackles her with a hug, but grandmami holds onto the collar of his shirt so that he can’t collapse forward onto her and get her white dress all dirty like he’d gotten her favorite dress all dirty.  luisa gives her brother a tight squeeze.  “see!  we wants you.  so you have to come with us.”

when raf gives her a chubby kiss on her cheek, luisa grins and looks up at her grandmami.  “we can go now.”  then she grins and ruffles raf’s hair until he squeals.  “happy birthday.”

“my birthday’s not today!”

“ _happy birthday anyway!_ ”


End file.
